MILLER: Speaker Welch whacks appropriations chair for going “rogue”

House Speaker Chris Welch took the extraordinary actions last week of permanently kicking Rep. Fred Crespo (D- Hoffman Estates) out of the House Democratic caucus, stripping him of his legislative staff, removing him from his appropriations committee chair’s position and booting him from the bicameral Legislative Audit Commission.

Speaker Welch also suspended a Democratic staffer who reportedly helped Crespo prepare an alternative budget plan, which is what got both people axed.

Rep. Crespo took me aside last Tuesday night at a reception and told me he was preparing to unveil a budget proposal that he believed could help the state weather at least some of the fiscal pain that the Republican Congress and the Trump administration were about to inflict on Illinois and all other states.

The very next day, Speaker Welch lowered the boom. Hard.

Needless to say, replacing an appropriations committee chair with barely two weeks to go in the spring session and tough budget votes ahead is not exactly commonplace. I’ve never seen such a thing in 35 years of doing this.

A source within the House Democratic operation said Welch told Crespo he hadn’t been engaging this session with the House’s top budget negotiators, appropriations staff, other members and the House Speaker himself.

But the final straw was Crespo’s budget proposal, which was far outside the “silo” of his appropriations committee’s purview, multiple sources said.

Crespo’s budget idea would have at least temporarily freed up about $4 billion in state spending in the upcoming fiscal year. The proposal would’ve withheld state funds from discretionary programs, created $1.6 billion in contingency reserves (which has been done in previous tight budget years), and allowed short-term borrowing from special state funds.

Rep. Crespo almost tanked the state’s crucial revenue bill last May by telling his fellow Democrats to “vote your conscience” during floor debate. Several moderate, House Democrats wound up voting against the bill, and it took hours to pass the measure.

Now, however, Crespo has even less to lose by going all-out against the budget plan since his powers have been stripped. The end of session budget vote was already going to be difficult, and now it could be even more fraught with peril if Crespo spends the remaining session days publicly and privately dumping on the budget plan.

But, maybe not, because no House Democrats rose to defend Crespo during a closed-door caucus meeting on Thursday, although some were grumbling privately.

Speaker Welch clearly took the caucus reaction (or lack thereof) as confirmation that he was right to move against Crespo: “I levied the decision that I levied, and I’m comfortable with it,” Welch told me after the Thursday caucus meeting. “I slept well last night. And from the reaction of my leadership team and members, they believe I made the right decision as well.”

Asked if Crespo has a path back to caucus membership, Welch told me: “No. We’re not going to tolerate that level of disrespect to our caucus. In my opinion, there’s no way back.”

When I asked Welch if ejecting Crespo from the caucus was a disproportionate response to what Crespo did, Welch gave two reasons for his decision.

First, Crespo’s use of his committee chair role to pursue an agenda which runs counter to shared caucus goals: “He’s free to speak his mind. He’s free to vote his conscience, just like other members have done,” he said, but added that no one would be allowed to use their official leadership roles “to pursue an agenda that is antithetical to our shared goals” of passing a budget.

Second, Welch said that last week’s “rogue” behavior by Crespo was not isolated: “It wasn’t because of a single instance. It’s because of cumulative instances.”

“I can’t allow someone to go rogue and be an individual,” Welch said.

Whew.

Speaker Welch also described his final sit-down with Crespo: “At two or three different points, he realized that what he did was wrong because he tried to apologize a couple of times.”

Rep. Crespo, however, claimed Welch said he felt like the member had stabbed him in the back. Crespo said he apologized to Welch if he took his actions that way because it wasn’t his intent. Crespo said he did not apologize for what he actually did.

Welch said he wasn’t concerned about Crespo using the remaining session days to try and pull votes off the budget. “I believe that we have better systems in place than we did last year, and so I don’t have the same level of concern this year as last year.”

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.